Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! Well, we had a VERY busy Halloween weekend with little Olivia. On Friday, they had a Halloween party at daycare and all the kids got to show off their costumes and eat lots of yummy snacks.

Here's a picture of Olivia with Jordyn (left) and Sophia (right) munching on the cookies! As you can see, Olivia was Minnie Mouse for Halloween:

Here are the boys - Ethan (left) and DJ (right):

Here's a video from the party:

Friday night we went to a Halloween Festival, "Goblins in the Park," with some friends. Sara and Gracie went with us and we met our little friends, Logan and Masyn with their parents, there. It was a good time and we enjoyed seeing all of Olivia's little friends together. Olivia and Gracie entered the 2 and under Halloween costume contest and got to parade around. Olivia didn't win, but we thought she was adorable. (A baby garden gnome won!)

Here we are hanging out before we left for the festival:

Here's little Gracie dressed as Curious George:

Grant met us out there when he got off work. Here he is with all the little ones.

From left to right: Masyn, Olivia, Gracie and Logan. Aren't they all so cute! Logan was a kitty cat and Masyn was *supposed* to be a pumpkin but didn't feel like wearing her costume.
(this is the best we could do with getting a group picture!)

When we got home that evening, we let Olivia and Gracie hang out and play a bit. Here's Gracie (wearing a pair of Olivia's PJs) and Olivia *sharing* the little bike. Olivia was on it and Gracie jumped on in front of her!

Then on Halloween/Saturday Olivia got to wear her costume to The Little Gym:

They ALWAYS love the bubbles at the end of class:

THEN, that night, it was time to get ready for our FIRST trick-or-treating adventure! We went around some of our neighbor's houses (especially all the neighbors we know really well) and Olivia got some yummy candy. Olivia has already REALLY enjoyed a dum dum lollipop while we were out.

Here she is with ready to go:

Then on Sunday, Grandmom and Granddad came to visit us! So we spent the afternoon hanging out with them. Grandmom even brought Olivia a little Minnie Mouse stuffed animal to play with in honor of her cute little costume! So, after a long weekend filled with friends, family and fun - we are all pretty worn out!

Hello everyone! Not a whole lot to share on this blog. A couple weekends ago we went to Sunset Beach, NC to see my co-worker get married and my parents came up to watch Olivia for the weekend. They got to have lots of good Olivia time with her. They even took her to the Little Gym for her class. Thanks again guys for helping us out!

Other than that, we also had some friends over for dinner about a week ago and one of them (Jenn) has a little girl that is 9 months old, Reese. Here they are playing together:

And cuddling in their jammies . . .

Here's just a cute picture of Olivia looking so innocent! Yeah, like that's really the case! :)

She is starting to get more hair now and it is even starting to curl as it gets longer. Especially right after a bath. Here's a good picture to show you her new curls coming in:

And here's a good picture of us pulling for our team (even when they are down!). GO PHILLIES! :)

We have also discovered that Olivia LOVES her punching balloon that I got her. Here's a picture and a video. (Be careful with the video - she finishes it off with a crazy scream!)

Pumpkins!

Hello again! So, this past weekend was VERY busy for us. We've already told you that we went to the NC State game (and that was after we had our Little Gym session and some friends over for a pre-game party). Well Sunday, we went to Hill Ridge Farms, which is a big farm that has hay rides, animals, a pumpkin patch and lots of other fun activities for kids. Along with us was Randy, Sara and Gracie AND Grant's parents decided to come up to join us (they just can't make it very long without seeing the little one! :)


We had a great time and the girls got to spend lots of time running around and hanging out as little buddies! Here are tons of pics and videos for you all to see the fun we had.


Here's Olivia running around the Hay Maze:

There was a cool tunnel that the girls LOVED running through. It made for some cool pictures, too!

Then we went to check out all the animals they had there.

Silly Girls:

Here's Olivia going down the slide - a bit of a hard landing, though!

The girls both loved the HUGE sandbox that they had:

One of the really cool things they had was a room filled with corn kernels. Although, after playing in it - I later found a handful of corn kernels in Olivia's diaper when we got home! ha ha

Before we could leave for the day, we had to do the hay ride. Here's a family shot on the hay ride on the way to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins:

Then we got to go pick out our pumpkins . . . . so many to choose from . . .

Then after we selected our pumpkins, it was back onto the hay ride to head back to the main part of the farm. Here's another family pic:

Well, that was about all from that trip. We all enjoyed ourselves and it was nice to spend the day with family and close friends. Next weekend Grant and I are heading off to a wedding on Sunset Beach, NC without the little one! This will only be the 2nd time we've been away from Olivia and the last time it was only for one night - this will be the whole weekend! My parents are coming up to watch Olivia for us (thanks guys!). And we are looking forward to sleeping in and a nice weekend at the beach (though it will be cold and we'll miss our little one!). Until next time, take care!

1st NC State Football Game

So we went to Olivia's first official NC State football game last weekend with our friends Randy and Sara and Gracie. Needless to say we only made it to half time before it became VERY evident that we needed to head on home. And we BARELY made it that far! We think that the girls just knew how ugly the game was about to get and wanted to save us from having to watch it! Thanks Olivia and Gracie! We DEFINATELY didn't need to see that!



Anyway, the girls did look adorable in their little NC State cheerleader outfits. Even Gracie had one on that Sara (a UNC Alum) actually bought her! Wow! Maybe Randy is turning her over to our side! :) Here are some cute pictures and a couple videos from our day:

Here's daddy touching base with some friends to meet up

Just hanging out with mommy at the game

Thankfully we had TONS of snacks to keep them occupied . . . for a little while!

Just watching some football! Go PACK!

Aren't they the cutest little cheerleaders!

Here are the girls running back toward our car at half time:

A nice group shot of us all!

Well, all I can say is that it was an experience . . . maybe not one I am willing to repeat again in the near future. It is just too hard for the girls to be able to sit still in such a confined area for so long. I'm thinking that since we have tickets to the State - Carolina game, either we'll need a babysitter or we'll need to try to sell those tickets. Anyone interested??

Little Gym

Hello again! So, I have been wanting to get Olivia involved in some sort of organized activity and Sophia at Olivia's daycare goes to The Little Gym and absolutely LOVES it and her parents have been raving about it to us for quite some time. So, now that the summer has come to an end, we figured that it was time to go check it out (since the classes for her age group are on Saturday mornings). So, we signed up for a trial class for last weekend (and even managed to convince Sara to sign up to bring Gracie along, too!). It took Olivia a few minutes to warm up to the class and get used to the environment the first class - but then she had a good time. Gracie didn't need ANY time to warm up! She was off and running around from the first minute! Both girls loved it and Sara and I signed them both up to continue on with the class through the rest of the semester, which runs through mid-January.

Here are some pictures from the first class. That class was "backwards day" so they learned how to do a backwards roll and back handspring (over the little octagon log - with help).

Here's the big inflatable bouncer they had for them to jump on. Gracie jumped around all over it - it took Olivia a little while to figure it out - then she started moving around on it pretty good.

Here's Olivia working on the balance beam:

Here we are working on her backward roll:

We had our second class yesterday and it was "counting day" so we counted some balls, bean bags and scarves. Then counted our fingers and toes. Olivia and Gracie had a good time with the bubbles again and had a good time meeting some new little friends.

Let's just say that I was calling these two the Dynamic Duo (Randy was calling them Thelma and Louise!) So, remember how we said that Gracie was running around in the first class and Olivia took a little bit to warm up, well in the second class - Gracie was still running around (but did come back to the group activities once we started them) and every time she ran off - Olivia followed! Monkey see, Monkey do! This was their favorite place to run off to - the donut wheel:

They worked on their basketball skills and Olivia did get the ball through the hoop on her own before I got my camera out - but then she wouldn't do it again for me to get a video of her doing it on her own - so I got a video of Miss. Rachel helping her:

Here's Gracie getting one in:

They all LOVE the bubbles at the end of every class:

See if you can see the bubble that got caught in her little alfalfa hair sprout sticking up on her head. It almost looked like one of the Who's from Who-ville with a bubble hanging perfectly from the end of a curl and it stayed there for a while!

After class we went out to lunch and the girls practiced their driving skills in the arcade:

This afternoon we went to visit our friends Ralph and Sheetal from college and their family. We got to see all the new little ones and they got to meet Olivia for the first time. The last time we saw them I was pregnant with her. We always love going over to see them and their family - they are all so wonderfully nice. We really need to try to see them more often. Hopefully it won't be so long until the next time we get together!

I also wanted to show you you guys some cute pictures of Olivia eating some ice cream from last week. She did really good all day and finished all of her dinner - so as a reward, she got to have some ice cream. She LOVED it! We also brought some of these little ice cream cups as dessert today to the get-together with Ralph and Sheetal for all the kids and they all loved them, too!

I also have one other video of Olivia showing off some of her *skills* for you all:

She's just a ham, isn't she? :)

Peanut Butter, Play Date and New Job

Hello everyone! Let me get you all caught up! So I started my new job this week! I am now officially the Manager of Commissioning and Qualification Projects at Vantage Consulting Group here in Raleigh as of this past Tuesday! Yeah! Things are going well. But my first project is out in Greenville, NC (which is about a 1 1/2 hour drive east of here - so looks like I'll be driving back and forth quite a bit here in the next several months!).

Other than that. Olivia had a couple of doctor's appointments last week to fill you in on. She had her 3-week post-op for her eye surgery last Wednesday. The doctor said that her eyes looked GREAT and the tubes were staying in place really well. So, we made an appointment for the week before Thanksgiving to have them taken out. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed for a little longer to hope they continue to stay in place.

Friday she had her 15-month checkup and here's her latest stats:

Height: 31 inches (70%)

Weight: 20.85 pounds (20%)

Head Circumference: 18 1/4 inches (50%)

Looks like she is still our tall and skinny little girl! But she has grown and gotten a full pound heavier. So all is well!

Grandmom Susan came to visit for the night last weekend, as well! We had a good time hanging out with her. She wanted to come see Olivia while Alan went off hunting.

We have also discovered that Olivia is not allergic to Peanuts so I decided to let Olivia have a good old American classic for dinner the other night: A Peanut Butter Sandwich! Check it out:

What is this stuff???

Want some, Mama??

mmmm, this stuff is pretty good!

Now my belly is full and I'm worn out!

We also had a play-date with our friends Logan and Masyn on Saturday morning at Masyn's house this past weekend. Masyn and Olivia had a fun time pushing each other around in the "doll" stroller.

I also got a chance to go over to see my friend, Cynthia on Friday and visit with her sweet little baby girls, Evelyn and Jessica. I am so thrilled that they are all home now safe and sound under one roof as a family. We had a nice time catching up and look forward to the next time that we can hang out again! Aren't they soooo cute??

Now that Olivia has finally gotten some hair and can wear some bows, I got my hot glue gun out and made her some. I think they came out pretty good! Take a look:

I made sure to make a BIG RED NC STATE bow for the football games we have lined up to go to this year. She hasn't actually worn any of these out and about yet, but we have tried them out on her and both Susan (Grandmom) and I approve!

Here's just another cute picture and video of Olivia sitting (and bouncing) on the ball that some of Grant's family had gotten her for her birthday. She has decided that it is PERFECT for bouncing on!

The only other thing that we have going on now is that we signed Olivia up at The Little Gym. It is sort of like toddler gymnastics/play class. Her first class is tomorrow morning (it's once a week) and we are really excited about it. And what's even cooler is that Gracie will be taking the class with her! How fun is that! I'll try to take a couple pictures tomorrow, but it is a parent participation class, so I'm not sure how much time I will have to take pictures, we'll see what I can sneak in. Wish us luck!

Until next time - take care and keep in touch!

Parental Rights

Hello Everyone! Well, here is a little different blog entry. I usually try to stay on topic here and keep my entries geared toward little Olivia - but this one sort of still is. My friend, Amy showed me this flyer that she was given the other day that informed her about a new law that was about to be passed by the United Nations that just upset us both! Now for those of you who know me pretty well (as most of you do . . .), you know that I NEVER get involved in politics. However, I felt moved to at least inform people since I was completely unaware - as was she! (and yes, I know - some of you have already received an email from me about this - please read the email and pass it on if you want to help me get the word out!)

SO please, whether you are a parent, want/plan to be one some day or just have children in your lives - please read my email below and decide if you would like to help - but at least inform yourselves of what is going on out there.

I wanted to make you aware of a a new law on the horizon that is being brought up by the United Nations to be voted on shortly - "Best Interests of the Child Principle"

This law will GREATLY limit what rights parents will have to discipline their children as they see fit. Now I am not talking about just reasonable spankings here, but also even groundings!!

For example - a teen in another country where this law already exists was upset that her parents grounded her for using a drug that was legal in her country (though - still a drug!!) and her guidance counselor referred her to this law. She took her parents to COURT under this law and WON. Her parents had to lift the grounding!! Do we really want our children (and the government) to have that much power in deciding what punishments should be allowed for OUR children??

There is a solution - there is an amendment out there that removes this portion of the law for only the United States (since the law contains many other things in addition to the "Best Interests of the Child Principle"), that are fine. There is a petition that I am asking you all to review and sign if you agree with trying to stop the government from removing parental power from the parents. You don't have to be a parent to agree with this or sign it.

Here are a couple of the bulleted points you need to know:

• The best interest of the child principle would give the government the ability to override every decision made by every parent if a government worker disagreed with the parent’s decision.
  
• A child’s “right to be heard” would allow him (or her) to seek governmental review of every parental decision with which the child disagreed.
  
• Children would have the right to reproductive health information and services, including abortions, without parental knowledge or consent.
  
• Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children.

(You can get the whole list HERE)

Please go HERE to sign the petition if you want to protect the parental rights in the United States and help protect our children from falling victim to one more *circumstance* that hinders them from a bright future!

Ok, that's my rant for today - please help me get the word out on this. I mean, isn't it immensely important to keep the power of raising your children with YOU, the parent!?!? How can we let the government come in between you and your child and allow the child be able to run to the government when they don't *like* the way you've grounded them! Besides, isn't that an incredible waste of governmental resources? That would give children a 3rd parent to run to when they don't like your answer (first ask mommy, then daddy and now the government??)